diff --git a/src/kernel/libroot/posix/string/strdup.c b/src/kernel/libroot/posix/string/strdup.c
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..7ab28a6baa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/kernel/libroot/posix/string/strdup.c
@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
+/* 
+** Copyright 2003, Axel Dörfler, axeld@pinc-software.de. All rights reserved.
+** Distributed under the terms of the OpenBeOS License.
+*/
+
+
+#include <string.h>
+#include <stdlib.h>
+
+
+char *
+strdup(const char *string)
+{
+	char *copied;
+	size_t length;
+
+	// unlike the standard strdup() function, the BeOS implementation
+	// handles NULL strings gracefully
+	if (string == NULL)
+		return NULL;
+
+	length = strlen(string) + 1;
+
+	if ((copied = (char *)malloc(length)) == NULL)
+		return NULL;
+
+	memcpy(copied, string, length);
+	return copied;
+}
+